Read My Lips

Knockdown Center, Queens, NY

Curated by Ashton Cooper

October 28 - December 18, 2016

Loren Britton and Kerry Downey

Read My Lips brings together recent paintings and sculpture made by Loren Britton and video and prints by Kerry Downey. Although working in different media, both artists tangle with representing marginalized bodies, problems of language, and the complexity of subject formation in a binary world.

Downey’s textured monotypes, many of which are embossed or use chine-collé, hang alongside Britton’s anthropomorphic plush sculpture and large four-by-five foot paintings, which sit on blocks. Downey’s projected video piece is paired with several more of Britton’s sculptures — these made to be used as seating.

Both series of work are grounded in a consideration of embodiment. The exhibition title takes the mouth specifically as a site from which to examine some of the central issues of this show: It is a source of language, an entrance to the interior, and a site of desire.

Read My Lips is accompanied by a publication featuring essays by Ashton Cooper and Jennifer Coates. Design by Erik Freer.

Download it here.

PRESS:

Joseph Henry, "Queering Queer Abstraction," The Brooklyn Rail, October 2017

See video clip here